The Only Player in 'Child of Stardust'

[Detected event occurrence, generating task...]

[Task name: "Good Chef Teaches You How to Be a Person"]

[Task objective: Investigate the truth behind the "soup dumplings"]

[Task time limit: 24 hours]

[Task reward 1: Experience points*100]

[Task reward 2: Star Coins*1000]

Zhou Yuan looked up at the back of the boss, a note popped up:

[Li Xu Tian, an excellent chef who graduated from the New Northern Culinary Institute. Don't be fooled by his honest and dull appearance; in reality, he is a master at dealing with people.]

"What a master at dealing with people." Zhou Yuan silently mocked in his heart.

There was no tool pack or skill scroll as a reward for this mission, indicating that the difficulty level was not high. However, he couldn't afford to be careless to avoid failure due to a miscalculation.

It was clearly unwise to take action here. Not to mention the surveillance cameras everywhere, those black-clad men in suits probably hadn't gone far. Any loud commotion would definitely draw them over.

Moreover, with the mission's 24-hour time limit, there was ample time. He could wait until Li Xu Tian went home before making his move.

——"Child of Stardust",activate!

Zhou Yuan opened the game store and quickly found the appropriate item through keyword search.

[Name: Tracking Monitor]

[Quality: Ordinary]

[Special Effect: Locks onto a monitoring target within a ten-meter range and tracks their location.]

[Note: With this item, Yebi Detective Agency has a 100% success rate in infidelity cases!]

[Price: 300 Star Coins]

[You have purchased the "Tracking Monitor," Star Coins -300]

The Tracking Monitor looked just like a mobile phone, convenient for disguise, with a scanning device built into the top for recording the biological information of the monitoring target.

Feigning nonchalance, Zhou Yuan took out his phone and started playing with it. With his other hand under the table, he retrieved the Tracking Monitor from the player backpack and pointed it at Li Xu Tian, who was kneading dough.

A few seconds later, the monitor vibrated slightly, completing the scan.

He silently put away the Tracking Monitor, played with his phone for a while longer, and then suddenly stood up as if remembering something important: "Boss, I just remembered, I have something to attend to. Could you please pack this for me?"

"There are bags over there; you can pack it yourself," Li Xu Tian showed his flour-covered hands, indicating he was busy.

Zhou Yuan used this short time to observe the other party.

Li Xu Tian was around forty years old, had a buzz cut, and was slightly overweight. Due to years of exposure to oil smoke, his facial skin was poor, and his hands bore many small burn marks.

His appearance gave a simple and somewhat dull impression, looking like an honest man who worked hard. No one would likely suspect that he was actually a psychotic murderer behind the scenes.

After packing, Zhou Yuan scanned the QR code to pay and left the shop, without lingering at the food street. He grabbed a shared electric bike and headed straight home.

His home was only a few blocks away from the food street. If Li Xu Tian made any moves, he could quickly catch up.

Back home.

Zhou Yuan looked at the soup dumplings in the plastic bag, feeling troubled. He definitely couldn't eat them, but throwing them away might lead to them being picked up and eaten by some urban explorers opening a treasure chest, which felt repulsive.

"Forget it. I'll put them in my backpack for now and find a place to dispose of them during my next dungeon mission."

·

At nine o'clock in the evening.

After cleaning up the store, Li Xu Tian pulled down the shutter door, lit a cigarette, and leisurely walked out of the food street.

His eyes roamed around, discreetly scrutinizing the passersby, as if he were selecting fresh meat at a market.

"Too skinny, too fat, overindulgent, too ugly... These few look pretty, but I can smell the perfume from three meters away; they're probably already marinated well.

Ugh, the quality is just too low."

Li Xu Tian couldn't help but remember the young man who came to the shop this afternoon, with an excellent appearance. It was clear he regularly worked out, and his meat quality was top-notch, but unfortunately, he probably wouldn't encounter him again.

Parking lot.

Beep beep.

In the corner, an old van made a sound, and the car lights flashed a few times. Li Xu Tian walked up to it, opened the door, and got in.

One and a half hours later.

He drove to a village on the outskirts of Xinhu and stopped in front of a two-story house.

As usual.

He lit a cigarette, turned off the engine, and got out of the car.

He went to the kitchen to prepare feed and threw it to the pigs that had been hungry all day, watching them scramble to eat while smoking and smiling.

Then, in a good mood, he went to bed and slept peacefully.

·

·

"Damn it, why does this byd live so far?"

On the quiet, late-night road, Zhou Yuan, disguised using a "One-Time Disguise Card," gritted his teeth as he stood up and pedaled his bicycle hard. The chain was nearly sparking.

To hide his identity, he definitely couldn't ride a shared electric bike directly here, and his nine-hand electric scooter, which had accompanied him for years, heroically perished in a fire. Helplessly, he had to dig out a bicycle from the basement that hadn't been ridden for ages.

His physical strength was somewhat better than an office worker who sat all day or a college student who didn't exercise, but ultimately, he was just at the average level for a normal person, and his legs were close to breaking from cycling all the way here.

Finally, Zhou Yuan saw a glimmer of hope, as the Tracking Monitor showed that Li Xu Tian was only five hundred meters away.

Li Xu Tian resided in a place called Feng Nan Village, located in the rural outskirts of Xinhu, surrounded by vast farmlands and forests.

This area had been slated for demolition seven or eight years ago, but nothing had happened so far. The villagers didn't dare renovate their houses, fearing that the demolition order would come right after they finished. So, the houses in the village remained old, one or two-story buildings, dilapidated and rundown.

Because of this, there were very few surveillance cameras inside and outside the village, with only a few installed on the main roads.

Zhou Yuan had undergone counter-surveillance training when he was a security guard at Stars Network, so avoiding a few scattered surveillance cameras was manageable.

At past eleven o'clock, the villagers were already deep in slumber. Feng Nan Village was pitch-black, with only the occasional barking of dogs breaking the silence, making it seem less like a graveyard.

Soon, wearing night-vision goggles, Zhou Yuan found Li Xu Tian's house. The Tracking Monitor indicated they were less than thirty meters apart.

There was still one bullet left in the Steel Rose Revolver, enough to deal with an ordinary person, but he feared Li Xu Tian might not be ordinary.

Out of caution, Zhou Yuan had made a paralysis grenade before coming.

A paralysis grenade required 300 spirituality points, but its effect was extremely potent. Upon hitting a target, it could paralyze and incapacitate an adult elephant in seconds. Even an extraordinary person would suffer severely if hit.

Zhou Yuan activated the "Ghost Walker" skill effect and silently rushed into Li Xu Tian's house, heading straight for the bedroom.

On the bedroom bed, Li Xu Tian snored thunderously, sleeping soundly.

The night-vision goggles allowed Zhou Yuan to have normal vision in the dark environment. He looked around, and when his gaze swept over the cabinet above, a note popped out:

[No decent person keeps a diary, but Li Xu Tian is not a decent person, so he does.

There's a safe in the first cabinet on the left, containing his darkest secrets.]

At that moment.

An intense chill crawled up Zhou Yuan's spine, making his hair stand on end.

Li Xu Tian's snoring stopped.